The five A’s of success
Image courtesy of Giorgio Trovato on Unsplah
I don’t know what your favourite dish is, but mine is curry. After years of practical experience I have learnt that if I use the same ingredients and repeat the same basic steps, it will always produce the same mouth-watering results. The point I am making here is that there is a certain predictability about success. This predictability implies that if you adhere to a particular thought pattern, adopt a specific posture and dutifully repeat a set of behaviours, you will produce consistent results.
To experience a lifestyle of success, as opposed to a casual relationship with it, you need to understand the arithmetics and building blocks of successful outcomes. Set out below are my take on the five A’s of success.
1. Ambition
Our thoughts paint the landscape for our future success. An ambition is a thought, which gives expression to a deep-seated desire. Success is impossible without first having the desire to experience it. I remember reading a great quote by the legendary boxing champion Muhammad Ali who said: “I am the greatest; I said it before I knew I was”. Your ambitions set out where you want to be, but to be successful, you must first believe that you can get there.
2. Aptitude
A person’s aptitude reflects their capacity to learn. Capacity to learn is crucial because those able to absorb and process new knowledge and information are better able to adapt to new and emerging challenges. Adaptability therefore is key to survival and survival is key to success. Without aptitude you cannot learn and if you cannot learn, you cannot mature and if you cannot mature you will struggle to succeed.
3. Ability
People often confuse ability with experience, but they are not the same. Your ability is what you can do, whilst your experience is what you have done. If success depended purely on experience, no-one would ever be successful. However, success favours the inexperienced, the determined and those willing and able to raise their game, learn new things and try new things.
4. Attitude
I have always thought of attitude as the fuel of success. Look at it this way, if you have fuel in your car, you can drive almost anywhere at anytime and in almost any conditions. Attitude operates in much the same way; it inspires, motivates and empowers you to keep going even in the most adverse of conditions. With the right attitude you can bounce back from failure, confound your critics and exceed expectations.
5. Application
Success does not meet you half way. If you want it you need to do more than start the journey, you must complete the journey. The point about application is that you can have all the aspiration in the world, the best ideas and the strongest networks, but if you are unwilling to apply yourself, little or nothing will change.
The five A’s of success must work together. If you have ambition, aptitude and ability but no application and the wrong attitude, it won’t work. Likewise, there is no point having the ambition, aptitude, attitude and application without ability, because that won’t work either. Success is a series of inter-connected and inter-dependent components that together are more than the sum of their parts.
